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Sasha Abramsky

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Sasha Abramsky
Sasha Abramsky, 2023
Born (1972-04-04) 4 April 1972 (age 52)
NationalityAmerican, British
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford (B.A., 1993)
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (M.A.)
Occupation(s)Journalist, author

Sasha Abramsky (born 4 April 1972)[1] is a British-born freelance journalist and author who now lives in the United States. His work has appeared in The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, New York, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stone.[2] He is a senior fellow at the American liberal think tank Demos,[3] and a lecturer in the University of California, Davis's University Writing Program.[2]

Biography

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Abramsky was born in England to a Jewish family[4] and was raised in London, in what Debbie Arrington described as "an accomplished and bookish family".[5] He is the son of Jack Abramsky, a mathematician,[6] and the grandson of Chimen Abramsky, a professor of Jewish studies at University College London, who was himself the son of Yehezkel Abramsky, a prominent Orthodox rabbi.[7] He received a B.A. from Balliol College, Oxford in politics, philosophy and economics in 1993. He then traveled to the United States, where he earned a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.[1][3] In 2000, he received a Crime and Communities Media Fellowship from the Open Society Foundations.

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Hard Time Blues: How Politics Built a Prison Nation. Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martins Press, January 2002 ISBN 0312268114
  • Conned: How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote, And Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House. The New Press, April 2006 ISBN 978-1565849662
  • American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment. Beacon Press (MA), May 2007 ISBN 978-0807042236
  • Ill-equipped: U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illness. Human Rights Watch, June 2007 ISBN 978-1564322906
  • Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It. Polipoint Press, June 2009 ISBN 978-0981709116
  • Inside Obama's Brain. Portfolio, December 2009 ISBN 978-1591843023
  • The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives. Nation Books, September 2013 ISBN 978-1568587264
  • The House of Twenty Thousand Books, a memoir of his grandfather, Chimen Abramsky. London : Halban, June 2014 ISBN 9781905559640
  • Jumping at Shadows: The Triumph of Fear and the End of the American Dream, a study of irrational fear in the United States. Nation Books, September 2017 ISBN 978-1568585192

Awards

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In 2000, Abramsky received the James Aronson Award for his Atlantic Monthly article "When They Get Out".[8] In 2016, his memoir The House of Twenty Thousand Books, which describes the lives of his grandparents Chimen and Miriam Abramsky, received an honorable mention for that year's Sophie Brody Medal.[9][10]

Personal life

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As of 2015, he lives in Sacramento, California with his wife Julie Sze, an American studies professor at University of California, Davis,[6] daughter, and son.[11]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Abramsky, Sasha 1972–". Contemporary Authors. 2009. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  2. ^ a b "Sasha Abramsky". University of California, Davis. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  3. ^ a b "Sasha Abramsky". Demos. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  4. ^ "Sasha Abramsky". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  5. ^ Arrington, Debbie (22 September 2017). "In his new book 'Jumping at Shadows,' Sasha Abramsky explores fear in American life, politics". The Sacramento Bee. ISSN 0890-5738. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  6. ^ a b Miller, Robert Nagler (16 October 2015). "Writer's tribute to grandparents' world of 20,000 books". J. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  7. ^ Abramsky, Sasha (27 August 2015). "How the Atheist Son of a Jewish Rabbi Created One of the Greatest Libraries of Socialist Literature". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  8. ^ "77 North Washington Street". The Atlantic. 2000. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  9. ^ "Book on 8-year-old Warsaw Ghetto boy wins Jewish literature medal". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 11 January 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  10. ^ "'The House of Twenty Thousand Books' re-creates an intellectual milieu". The Washington Post. 7 October 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  11. ^ "Bio". Sasha Abramsky Website. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
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